


we'd have nothing left

by sky_reid



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, Relationship Negotiation, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, background frank/jamia and gerard/lindsey, mentions of alcoholism and drug abuse (mostly past), of the relationship and the band both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24152995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_reid/pseuds/sky_reid
Summary: they don't talk about this thing, whatever it was, between them. or at least they hadn't until now.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 11
Kudos: 39





	we'd have nothing left

**Author's Note:**

> listen. i have nothing to say for myself.
> 
> it's 2000 words of pure unadulterated angst. that's it, that's the story. very vaguely set in 2016/2017.
> 
> title from the used's cut up angels - _if we cut out the bad, well then we'd have nothing left_

“Frankie,” Gerard says in the tone of voice Frank knows all too well even though he hasn’t heard it in years. He still remembers it, vividly, from the _I want you_ Gerard pressed into his shoulder that night when he was too drunk to remember in the morning, from the _I just feel so-- so alone_ Gerard kissed into his mouth in a hotel room somewhere in the vast nothingness of the Midwest, from the _this isn’t it, it’s not_ Gerard tried to yell at him as the door to the back lounge closed between them, from the _I can’t do this anymore_ Gerard whispered after taking everything Frank had to give and more.

He leans his head against the cold concrete wall behind him and looks up at the sky. It’s too bright in the city to really see the stars, only a few specks of lights twinkle on the dark canvas. The smoke he blows out obscures his vision anyway. He quit almost six weeks ago now. He quit and he hasn’t even wanted to start it up again, but then he saw Gerard, heard his voice, made him laugh and his fingers were suddenly itching for-- for _something_ and he had to put a stick of nicotine between them or he’d’ve done something he’d regret in the morning.

“Gee,” he replies because he can’t very well leave dead things lie.

The silence stretches between them, heavy and cold like it never used to be before. There’s some shuffling, a few careful steps, a loud exhale. Frank takes another drag of his cigarette and blows smoke out through his nose. He can feel Gerard leaning against the wall next to him now; close enough that Frank knows he’s there, far enough that it doesn’t matter.

“Thought you quit,” Gerard says thoughtfully.

Frank pointedly takes another drag. “I did.” He can feel Gerard watching him. That always used to light up something inside him, make him fidget, turn him on in more ways than one. Now, he doesn’t feel much of anything.

He’s almost down to the filter when Gerard asks, “Can I have one?”

Frank digs the pack out of his jacket pocket and shakes out a cigarette. He barely looks over sideways when Gerard pulls it out without touching any part of him. “Thought you quit,” he throws back in Gerard’s face.

Gerard pulls a lighter out of his hoodie and lights up. “I did,” he says through the cloud of smoke he exhales in Frank’s direction. There’s a joke in there somewhere, about old habits and quitting them. Frank doesn’t find it very funny. He looks at the wall on the opposite side of the alley.

His fingers and lips sting with the heat from the filter when he takes the last drag. It’s good, makes him want for a different kind of heat less, reminds him that whatever sick pleasure he gets from his unhealthy coping mechanisms comes with the price of pain to pay later; stops him from giving in to muscle memory and reaching out. He waits until he sees Gerard drop the butt of his cigarette to the ground out of the corner of his eye. Then he waits a little longer.

Finally, Gerard says, “I listened to the demo you sent me.”

Frank leans his head back and closes his eyes. They don’t talk about it, not-- not like _this_. Because Frank knows what this is, he knows down to his bones like he’s always known with Gerard. And they don’t do that. They never did. That was always part of the problem.

It’s not like Gerard doesn’t know. He isn’t stupid and Frank isn’t subtle. They both just pretend otherwise.

Frank shares his music with them all sometimes, for encouragement or advice. Gerard gives both freely, talks about rhymes and rhythm, suggests a different turn of phrase, asks about the reasoning behind certain chords. They never, ever discuss the content. Gerard never asks because he doesn’t need to. Frank never says because he doesn’t need to either.

So it’s a surprise when Gerard says, honest and raw and startlingly heartbreakingly upsettingly real, “I didn’t know.”

It hits Frank like a punch to the chest, knocks the breath out of him and turns the whole world just a little sideways. He wraps his arms around himself even knowing the cold he feels spreading through him isn’t from the wind. When he opens his mouth, it feels like he’s going to scream but he just laughs bitterly instead. “Yeah, you did. You knew,” he says. It comes out twisted and mean and ugly, more so than he intends.

“I--” Gerard starts, then stops. Frank stares down at himself, his feet crossed at the ankles, his arms tight over his chest, his fingers twitching against the leather of his jacket. He doesn’t need to look at Gerard to know that he’s frowning, biting his lip like he does when he’s concentrating. “I didn’t _want_ to know,” Gerard admits finally, quiet like a confession told to the night. “How much it meant to you. How much you--”

Frank holds his breath. Fifteen years they’ve known each other now, give or take. He’s said it a hundred times, a thousand, more. It’s never been like this. Never a weapon Gerard could pull on him when he was already wounded and on the ground.

Gerard swallows audibly. He shuffles closer, closer, closer. Almost close enough. When he takes a deep breath, their shoulders brush just the slightest bit. “Did it-- Did it hurt?” he asks, voice just barely more than a whisper.

“What?” Frank breathes, surprised more than confused. Gerard’s not crowding him, not even really touching him but he still feels like the world is closing in on him.

“When you loved me. Did it hurt?”

There’s a knife twisting in Frank’s chest. He feels it like a physical blade, scraping against his ribs, digging into where his heart should be. There’s not enough air in his lungs but that’s alright because he’s not sure he’d know what to do with it anyway.

He looks up. Gerard’s face is so close to his that it shocks a shaky breath out of him. Wide eyes, bitten lips, messy hair - he’s exactly as Frank remembers him in his dreams. He has to dig his fingers into his arms so hard it hurts to stop himself from reaching out. _No_ , he wants to say. _No, it didn’t hurt. No, I didn’t love you. No, don’t ask me this._

“I never stopped,” he says instead.

They’re standing so close together that he feels the breath Gerard lets out on his lips. He tries not to shiver. He fails.

Gerard turns away from him then, head thudding against the concrete as he leans heavily back into the wall and slides down so he’s sitting on the dirty asphalt with his knees folded up and arms wrapped around them. He looks young suddenly, small. He looks like he did when Frank first met him. “Me neither,” he says with his head between his knees.

Frank can’t help it then - he laughs. There’s no humor in it, just pain and disbelief that burns like bile when it comes up his throat. Because Gerard never-- It was never like that for him. It was never the same. But when Frank looks at him again and finds him already watching there’s genuine hurt written all over his face, set deep in his eyes. Over what, Frank doesn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” Gerard says wetly, miserably. He’s not crying, hasn’t in a long time, not in front of Frank. It doesn’t make a difference to the stab of guilt Frank feels deep in his gut.

He knows Gerard’s sorry. It’s not the first time he’s apologized, even if it hasn’t always been in so many words. It’s right there, plain to see on his face - in the set of his mouth, the brightness of his eyes, the way he’s holding himself. The thing is, it’s not enough. Not when Frank still aches with it every time he thinks about them; not when the phantom pain of rejection stings under his skin with every breath he takes in Gerard’s presence; not when there’s so much there between them, in the silences they don’t fill and the touches they don’t share and the careful few inches of space they keep like they’ll both break if they so much as brush against each other.

He shakes out another cigarette from the pack and lights it up. It’s only when the smoke burns his lungs so much it feels like he’s choking, dying, will never take a breath again that he exhales. “Yeah,” he says shakily and doesn’t bother adding anything else. It’s not okay. It’ll probably never be okay again. He doesn’t want to lie to Gerard about that. He slides down the wall so they’re sitting next to each other and presses their knees together tentatively. Gerard presses back immediately.

“Not for that,” he says quietly, eyes wide and shiny and earnest on Frank’s face. “Not for-- No.” His hands are shaking where they’re pressed to his stomach, Frank notices. There’s a part of him that still wants to reach out and hold them. He doesn’t. He also doesn’t move away when Gerard leans further into him. “I’m sorry for not showing you better. For never telling you when it mattered. For making you feel like you were… less.”

They sat like this in the van when Frank still wasn’t sure where he belonged, no longer a part of his own band, not yet at home in Gerard’s. They sat like this on the floor of Gerard’s basement when Gerard admitted, hushed and hurried like he thought he could cover up the break in his voice, that he was afraid they’d never make it, that he was afraid they _would_. They sat like this on the plane when Gerard was sweating and shaking and crying and Frank couldn’t do anything to make it better. They sat like this on the sofa in the Paramour when Gerard was barely even there and Mikey wasn’t at all. They sat like this on an empty bunk on the bus when Gerard talked about Lindsey and Frank listened, with a sinking feeling, for all the things he didn’t say. They sat like this in the studio when Gerard admitted to the empty bottles and the traces of white on the table in front of them.

They sit like this now. Gerard says, “It was never just you, Frankie. I loved you back. Still do.”

Frank almost, _almost_ believes it.

He watches his cigarette burn down, ash losing the fight with gravity and falling off in clumps. When there’s nothing left but the filter, he lets it fall from his numb fingers. He can feel Gerard breathing steadily next to him. There’s no real silence in the city, no way to avoid the cacophony of passing cars and barking dogs and distant sirens, but it feels like there’s a bubble around them where the noise is muted, unimportant. He doesn’t know what to say. 

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks eventually when his legs are tingling from spending too long in the same position and the cold of concrete all around him has seeped into his skin. “Why now?”

Gerard doesn’t hesitate to answer. “Because you deserve to know,” he says. His touch startles Frank, long fingers wrapping around his arm and squeezing hard, hard enough maybe to leave bruises as a reminder that this happened, this was real. “Because you always-- Because you deserved _better_. And I’m sorry I couldn't be that.”

Frank tilts his head to the side so their foreheads touch. It’s a strange feeling, painfully familiar and not at the same time. It’s been so long since they’ve been this close, since he’s had this much of Gerard pressed against his skin, smelled the sweat-cigarette-aftershave on him, breathed the same air as him. It feels like the first time again. It feels like home still.

It’s too much.

Frank turns away, looks up at the night sky. Even without the cigarette smoke, his vision is still blurry. Gerard stays pressed to his side, forehead resting on Frank’s shoulder.

Sometimes, when he’s especially low, lying alone in bed with a drink or a pill too many coursing through his veins, Frank lets himself imagine a world where things were different, where Gerard kissed him in front of strangers who weren’t there for a show, held his hand in public, wasn’t afraid of himself. Where Gerard chose _him_. Frank would have chosen him right back. It hurts to even think about, hurts to imagine himself without the life he has and loves now. But he knows he would’ve chosen Gerard over anything. He just never got the chance.

It’s for the best that way.

“It doesn’t change anything,” he says because it doesn’t. It’s too late for them, has been for years.

“No,” Gerard agrees, “it doesn’t.”

If Frank had ever imagined this, if he’d ever dared to hope, he’d have thought he’d feel different after. Less angry maybe, less bitter, less hurt. He doesn’t. He doesn’t feel anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> massive thanks to the polycule for being awesome and supportive and inspiring me to finish something for the first time in 4 motherfucking years (and to vee especially for sharing the dialogue that prompted this)
> 
> find me [on tumblr](https://captivekinqs.tumblr.com/)


End file.
